PeopleofSuperintelligence

Researcher

Ellen D. Zhong

Ellen Zhong is a computer scientist whose AI research helps researchers reconstruct protein structures from cryo-EM images. She studied protein folding at Virginia and coauthored cryoDRGN, a neural method for reconstructing protein structures from microscopy data. She joined Princeton’s computer science faculty in 2022, then coauthored the AlphaFold 3 and CryoDRGN-AI papers. Her work earned her a 2025 NIH Director’s New Innovator Award and a 2025 Eric and Wendy Schmidt Transformative Technology Fund award announced by January 2026; as of October 2026, she leads her lab at Princeton and is Professor in Residence at Generate Biomedicines.

Works
93
Citations
18,299
h-index
18

Publication numbers from OpenAlex, as of 27 October 2026.

Timeline

  1. 2011

    Protein folding at Virginia

    In 2011, as a chemical engineering undergraduate at the University of Virginia, she works with Professor Michael Shirts to simulate how proteins fold and unfold.

  2. 2019–2021

    CryoDRGN for protein motion

    In 2019, she coauthors a preprint introducing cryoDRGN, a neural method for reconstructing continuous 3D protein density distributions from cryo-EM images. Nature Methods publishes the paper in 2021.

  3. 2022

    MIT doctorate and Princeton faculty

    She completes her Ph.D. at MIT and joins Princeton’s computer science faculty in 2022. Before Princeton, she works as a scientific programmer at D. E. Shaw Research and interns at DeepMind on the AlphaFold team.

  4. 2024

    AlphaFold 3 coauthorship

    She coauthors Nature’s 2024 paper on AlphaFold 3, which describes a diffusion-based model for predicting joint structures across biomolecular complexes.

  5. 2025

    Reconstructing with CryoDRGN-AI

    In 2025, she coauthors Nature Methods’ CryoDRGN-AI, a paper on neural ab initio reconstruction of challenging cryo-EM and cryo-ET datasets.

  6. October 2025

    An NIH New Innovator Award

    In October 2025, she receives the NIH Director’s New Innovator Award for work on AI and machine-learning tools for cryo-EM and cryo-ET image processing.

  7. By January 2026

    AI for small-molecule structures

    By January 2026, she has been selected for a 2025 Eric and Wendy Schmidt Transformative Technology Fund award for a project with chemistry professor Mohammad Seyedsayamdost. The project aims to use AI to automate structure determination for small molecules from nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectral analysis.

  8. As of October 2026

    Princeton and Generate Biomedicines

    She is an assistant professor of computer science at Princeton, where she leads the E.Z. Lab for Molecular Machine Learning. She is also Professor in Residence at Generate Biomedicines.

Career

  1. NowPrinceton UniversityAssistant Professor of Computer Science, Lead, E.Z. Lab for Molecular Machine Learning
  2. NowGenerate:BiomedicinesProfessor in Residence
  3. D. E. Shaw ResearchScientific Programmer
  4. Google DeepMindIntern, AlphaFold team

Education

  1. 2022Massachusetts Institute of TechnologyPh.D.
  2. University of VirginiaUndergraduate student

From the biography.

Checked career sources: computing.mit.edu, cs.princeton.edu, cs.princeton.edu, cs.princeton.edu, ezlab.princeton.edu.

Colleagues

People with dated positions at the same organization in the same years.

Sources and credits

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  1. The power of two computing.mit.edu. Checked 27 October 2026.
  2. Reconstructing continuous distributions of 3D protein structure from cryo-EM images arxiv.org. Checked 27 October 2026.
  3. CryoDRGN: Reconstruction of heterogeneous cryo-EM structures using neural networks pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov. Checked 27 October 2026.
  4. Ellen Zhong wins NIH New Innovator Award cs.princeton.edu. Checked 27 October 2026.
  5. Ellen Zhong cs.princeton.edu. Checked 27 October 2026.
  6. Accurate structure prediction of biomolecular interactions with AlphaFold 3 nature.com. Checked 27 October 2026.
  7. CryoDRGN-AI: neural ab initio reconstruction of challenging cryo-EM and cryo-ET datasets nature.com. Checked 27 October 2026.
  8. Ellen Zhong selected for 2025 Schmidt Transformative Technology Fund award cs.princeton.edu. Checked 27 October 2026.
  9. Ellen D. Zhong cs.princeton.edu. Checked 27 October 2026.